Entry nr. 169
They don’t understand. They are afraid because they don’t understand it. The ignorant fools consider death the end. But I know better. Death is not the end, it is nothing. Nothing more than a barely noticeable transaction in a cycle as infinite as time itself.
I have seen the truth now. But they won’t listen to me… most ponies won’t, corrupted as they are by the insular sisters who would consider themselves rulers of this land. Why won’t they see the good in death? Or the evil in life? A forest cannot live without the nutrients provided through a forest fire, and we ponies too need death to cull the weak so that our species can thrive.
But all is not lost. There are ponies out there who think like me, ponies who can see the chaos and suffering brought through life and the order and tranquility that can only be found in death.
A few ponies will follow me. To death and beyond.
*****
”Are you ready… to stand face to face with death himself?”
Twilight wanted to throw the unhinged embalmer from the room, but alas she could not come up with a tactful way to do that. She tried her best to shut him out, but since he was the only one to speak, that was hard too. ”Yes,” she answered shortly.
Anubrisk nodded and lifted the sky blue cloth. Twilight caught the glimpse of pink, but closed her eyes in the last moment. She could not bear to look and she did not really need to. She swallowed and willed forth her magic. Tentatively she reached out with it towards the foal’s body.
It did not feel… dead. It just felt like any soft object, like pillow or something, though there was a disturbing weight and stiffness to it. Either way, the foal’s coat was completely untouched by any magic. She increased the power of her spell slightly to get further into the foal’s body.
Her magic wormed it’s way through the foal. Soon she only had the central parts left to scan. She willed even more power into her horn to scan the lungs and heart.
It felt like somepony had directed a blowtorch at her horn. Twilight screamed out in pain and surprise and quickly retracted her magic. Panicked she opened her eyes and stared straight at the dead. She felt like her heart would stop.
Pain in her horn form the sudden magical onslaught, and pain in her heart from what she saw.
The little pony just… laid there, peaceful like it was asleep. The foal had curled up slightly as if it was cold, as if it had tried to cling on to the last thread of life as it died. It was so small! How could something so small be… dead? What kind of a world does something like that? Twilight felt tears well up in her eyes, and they had nothing to do with the pain in her horn. She wanted to walk forward and touch the little one, just to be sure. Maybe it was just asleep, exhausted from its journey into the world. Maybe she could warm it up and then it would wake. Wake and stare curiously at her.
It couldn’t be dead… not really.
But it was. Twilight knew that, though she wanted with all her heart to be wrong.
Only now did she become aware that somepony was shaking her, and rather violently at that, and screaming in her ear.
”TWILIGHT, WHAT HAPPENED!? ANSWER ME!” Shining armor bellowed with a voice trained to be heard over the mayhem of a battlefield.
”Silence! The dead are resting here!” Anubrisk hissed forcefully, yet somehow silent.
”I-I’m okay,” Twilight mumbled through her quiet sobs for the poor little pony in front of her. ”I just… I can’t watch…” She turned away and cried silently to herself. She did not know this foal, but it just felt so wrong nonetheless.
So much lost, so much happiness and so many adventures… dead because of some alien magic. This little life would never be lived. Twilight cried even harder at that thought. She did not notice how, but she found herself hugged by her brother. She thanked him by burrowing her face in his snow white coat. Feeling his powerful heartbeat against her ear helped. He had always been there for her. She was not alone, she was never alone.
She swallowed down the rest of he tears and stood like that for a little while, hiccuping and swallowing. ”Thank you,” she said into his coat once her voice had stabilized enough to carry. She squeezed harder before she let go.
”What happened, Twilight? Why did you scream?” Shining Armor asked.
”I… I felt something. Some magic in the… the foal.” Twilight mumbled. She felt her brother stiffen. ”I need to check again, I think.”
Shining Armor silently let go of his sister to give her space to work. Twilight concentrated and reached out again with her magic. She was slower this time. She could not tell what kind of magic she had felt, but it was a volatile one. She had to handle it with respect. She touched it gently. It did not hurt her this time. She prodded it carefully, and then grasped it.
She barely had the time to think before the magic in the foal rushed towards her, leaping through the conduit she had created between herself and the body. Instinctively she expelled the magic from her horn and directed it where it could not hit anypony; straight into the ground. A ray, black as night, rushed onto the floor and a small cluster of crystals appeared at the impact site. Twilight did not really need to see them. The moment she had felt the magic shoot from her horn she had recognized it from the one time she had used Sombra’s signature magic.
”Dark Magic…” Shining Armor said grimly. ”Is… this what you found, Twilight? Is this what has… killed them?”
Twilight nodded. ”A lump of Dark Magic in the foal’s heart…it cannot have occurred naturally, only a hooffull of ponies in history even knows about this magic.” Twilight swallowed. ”This was deliberate. Somepony… killed them…”
”Crystal, Snow, Wind and Joy, listen to my plea… deliver us from the clutches of the Dark One. Might his blasphemous magic never stain our souls again… Crystal, Snow, Wind and Joy, please, hear me…” Anubrisk mumbled frantically, his head bent in a bow. Twilight saw him shake slightly under the robes. Twilight assumed he would not help their course much in his current state.
”We don’t know for sure yet,” Shining Armor said silently. ”This is just one of the dead. There are eleven more… maybe it… it is just a unique occurrence in this foal…”
Twilight was rather sure this was not a natural death, but she saw her brother’s point too. If they wanted to accuse somepony of something as hideous as this, then they had to be sure they were correct.
And to be sure of that they would have to perform the same scan on the other foals.
She hardened her face in resolve. If that was what was necessary, then she would do it. Cadence’s foal and countless others might depend on this. She could not afford to be afraid. She would not be afraid.
”Anubrisk, we need your help. Where are the other stillborn?”
Nearly four macabre hours later Twilight retracted her magic from the last foal after a rather haphazard scan. She had discovered rather fast that the dark magic was pretty easy to sense once she knew where to look, something that had sped up the process considerably. The longer they had progressed though, the clearer it became that it was exactly as horrible as they had suspected.
”I’m… not going to ask who could have done this,” Twilight mumbled, her voice thick. ”But I am going to ask how they can have learnt it. Only Sombra himself should know…”
”You are certain it can’t be… him, yes?” Anubrisk asked. ”The spirits of the departed are afraid, Sparkle. He-Who-Is-Shadow holds power beyond the mortal realm… the souls are no longer safe should he be back…”
”He is not back,” Twilight said. ”He was blown to bits by the crystal heart; he will never come back.”
”Then… who…?”
”I imagine it must be some renegade,” Shining Armor said grimly. ”Think of it. The only way to figure this out without Celestia herself teaching it would be through whatever artifacts Sombra left behind. Everything remotely dangerous we found in his castle was taken into custody and sealed away in one of the Crystal Castle’s treasure rooms so that they would never be seen by anypony. That includes his spell books.”
”And you are completely sure nopony has seen them?” Twilight asked.
”I put up the strongest protection spells I know,” Shining Armor said. ”Nopony gets past those.” Something dawned in Shining Armor’s face. ”Though the room where we found the books is unguarded… but it should not be accessible at all if you can’t use dark magic. It was in Sombra’s castle, not ours… and there is nothing left there.”
”That is a mystery we have to solve later. Take me to the room where you found the books!” Twilight said. ”For now, that is the only lead we have.”
”Right, little sis.” Shining Armor turned to Anubrisk. The embalmer looked like he had calmed down from the initial shock now, but he still had a wary glint in his sallow eyes. ”I would ask you to keep this a secret. If it comes out anything related to Sombra is ahoof, panic will ensue. That must not happen. Understood?”
”I’m… silent as the grave…” Anubrisk hissed in that veiled voice of his. ”And the dead will not speak your secrets… I promise…”
”Obviously,” Shining Armor though. ”Okay Twily, back to the castle. Sombra’s study was just behind the crystal throne room itself, where Cadence’s study is now. You teleport ahead, I will come once I have checked on Cadence quickly. You will have to use Dark Magic to conjure up Sombra’s room, so make sure no crystal pony sees you, alright?”
”Right,” Twilight said. ”Meet me in Sombra’s room.” With that, Twilight ignited her horn and felt the familiar tug at her fur when the arcane forces turned the world around her inside out.
*****
Entry nr. 313
Twelve acolytes and me. Thirteen. A scared number.
A sign?
A sign.
*****
When she opened her eyes, she stood in front of the Crystal Castle’s throne. A couple of guards, including one really hunky-looking orange one, looked at her with badly masked surprise.
Twilight felt her cheeks flush for just a moment before she slipped through the discrete door beside the throne. She had never been here before, but it was easy to recognize Cadence’s decorating hoof at work. Most of the room’s decor went in blue and pink, with a large window taking up an entire wall. There was a neat, tidy desk beside it, sharp quills and filled ink pots standing ready to be used. Twilight saw a book on the desk too, and read the title before she could look away.
”Your First Foal, From Birth Until Five Years,” Twilight read the title. ”I promise you, Cadence… all will be well.” Twilight shook her head. ”Right, let’s see, you evil king. Show me your secrets.”
She reached into the darkest depths of her heart, into the few true dark emotions she remembered. The memory of when Tirek ruined The Golden Oak Library came floating up to the surface. The feeling of utter loneliness she had felt when Discord first returned and her friends were brainwashed. She tapped into those feelings, the feelings of hatred, sorrow and despair and willed them into her horn. Immediately came the bitter taste of bile in her mouth and the splitting headache, but she powered through. She felt the darkness in her horn rebel, trying to lash back against her, but she forced it forward out of her horn with a powerful, almost violent command.
A flash of dark red light sprung from her horn and forced itself into the castle wall. The result was immediate.
The room was largely the same, only… darker. The window was still there and a desk twice as large as the old one stood beside it, this one devoid of writing materials. An empty bookcase took up half of the last wall, while a narrow passageway claimed the rest.
”Strange… he did not mention any other room. Where does this lead to?” Twilight thought. A quick look around told her that there was nothing to be gained from the room she stood in, so that only left for her to explore the mysterious passage. She lit up her horn.
A steep staircase stretched downwards before her, uncomfortably much like a fall rather than a walk. It was also built for a pony taller than her. Twilight had to jump from step to step as the narrow passage restricted her ability to fly. Her hoofsteps sounded like thunderclaps to her ears in the echoing walkway, and the shifting shadows from the unlit wrought iron torches on the walls seemed to follow her. Twilight folded her ears back instinctively. She was not stupid enough to pretend she was not a little afraid. The last pony to walk down these stairs might very well have been Sombra himself; caution was top priority.
She continued down for what must have been between fifteen to thirty minutes before the stairs finally stopped in front of a simple wooden door, black as ash. Twilight illuminated it, but she did not spot any of the crystals she had faced when she went through the last of Sombra’s doors.
She swallowed and carefully pushed the door open, every nerve tense as a bowstring, ready to fling her back to safety if she triggered some trap or the like. She knew Sombra had a habit of setting traps.
Not this time though. Nothing happened once she opened the door, so she peeked inside.
The room was large. Much larger than what was sensible after such an uncomfortable way to it. It stretched far in front of Twilight, and she could not see the roof at all. It was hidden behind a thick, pitch black haze that seemed to drink up whatever light she directed at it. She went in, cautiously.
Strange, green-black torches started to burn on their own accord, casting a twisted, contorted kind of light over the room. She gasped and looked around. Empty thrones stared at her from the sides, each one disturbingly similar. Thick, black slabs of basalt seemed to have sprouted from the ground and formed the eerie thrones. In front of each one stood a massive book stand with a heavy book on each. Twilight swallowed. The book stands were all shaped like a ponies standing on their hind legs with the books on their backs and forelegs out to the sides. Each of the statues were impeccably crafted, and each one seemed to be in agony. Twilight almost though she could hear the statues cry in pain from holding the massive books up for the many centuries they must have been here.
She performed Cadence’s breathing exercise. The very air felt old and chilly in her nostrils.
Once she had gathered her bearings, she counted the thrones absently. Thirteen, six to each side of her and one slightly larger in front of her. She went closer to it. The creepy book stand looked with pleading eyes on Twilight, begging her to remove the burden from her back.
This book stand was an Alicorn.
Twilight paused, then looked around.
No other stand was an alicorn. Warily she went around the book stand and stood in front of the book. It was black, with a complex star on the cover, formed from silver thread. ”A triskaidekagram…” she mumbled. ”Thirteen points…” She paused for one more moment, before she opened the heavy book on a bookmarked page.
The first thing that struck her was the odd feeling of the pages. They were heavy, thicker than she was used to. Durable and with a slightly leathery feel to them. Then she spotted the faint symbol behind the wall of text on one of the pages.
Twilight screamed in horror when she realized what it was. It was a cutie mark! The pages were the tanned hides of ponies! Twilight wanted to throw the book away and burn it, then drink enough cider for her to forget she ever saw this horrifying tome. She did none of those things. Instead, she preformed the breathing exercise again and started reading. It was clear that this room not had been searched by her brother, so anypony could have come here.
This might be the answers they were looking for. The books sure were horrifying enough.
Entry nr. 313
Ritual: Regis Mandatum Maxima
Mk fcdrg c gagkml bnfw abap bgsayevie wvrz ntf jfremx yixm oamwge dw a evljeifgr hhig mwi mli zokv nfxrecavw eeuzuzafkke. Mdi cdxucz nyg sfll wmox wtrvi sa cwttrmq uuxmsnev lgls opka mdi ydkhv zlqmw xoe oarzlz kaer ghattviq uigsw. Rs gxvbswl zb fkwe jxhgf ycvvgmnqfmv wzfviwfek, c pycvvwmm zvskmr vs fwz exmytmid jscc, tw gnr zupe im dtrmsekveu ysbh opqglwbobn.
Lpk ebpylg quuh mczmf ag wiiecm fg xlr dsa. A dela mmdvzfakk bf hwcrk wro kyrkhj yvggrqlzk mv byx wtvrav oei zvmtfw ko kcszof anneh fp kpaeso mgxg Tuh Eevymu Lxee, axvei akvwt ulv tzqxgewv brkoid vw dggnpbfwd vq Oees ww mli Hnzclcszrx ut vvcabkq, ofm brkoi lo ivgfj fhyj, apfaqihvzxh fl a dgsjiu fuosmwium. Zue jqzhth xspw eprd ym sfe vq flx uqxax; xuijvevr kbodt jioe enrn lpk fnj vpvghgr trl twax. D eyymqtbirglq roniusox dlrnfmrrr eqmum wxezqpv hz qiiwd hs flx yqknep, eeuktzrj gbq wiiswa kiejg zubnxpzr mkbfrxw anfwqew. Apzl, lsjengr jihz na sihuazk ghw tkflav dvgrkttaxw lo oh aj mom xkiegekv plvlgs, iisje kways szk phitwzxenm tlgsueaw. U, qrzmcy, leie gplp wxpwqfhvd av jbifo zubo atol tjs cgmysl Pdxp hm byx Yruadnonig, hmuok eeojuen xwgyl. Plpmi iu bzramfg cuqzxubzgk xuik tikydy cz xsikavm ghw agzx sej, cswgjpp.
Tw lhr yqvlla rki vrcaveu, xkr gmjr jauzosium yuthp ommnm cyc vyh os lzrhjmem tsay tnofh df na dekadgfr tzm yhfisydrg rfzaxwk. Oafq xal trlx ghp au cfrvhgqe, ozld bnr sskxvyegp rmtj o aykx gf gkq thug phy avsz vo iiyvpq.
Ulzs kpgyl uwtpeqhp ole twestp.
Twilight stared. She understood the first two lines, and from that she gained that this was indeed some type of spell book, but what did the rest mean? She flipped back and forth to see if there was anything understandable. ”Lancea Obscura… Cornu Ignis…” she read a few headlines, but all they did was tickling a morbid curiosity. The whole book seemed to be written in the same gibberish, aside from the entries and names for the presumed spells.
”Must be encrypted or something…” Twilight mumbled. Her magic did not pick up any indication of an encryption-enchantment, so it must be a classical, written code. ”But with what key?”
”Little sister!? Are you down there!?”
Shining Armor’s echoing voice nearly made Twilight jump out of her skin. She was surrounded by book stands that looked like they were tortured and held a book written on pony hides. She did not need any sudden screams.
She swallowed her heart down in her chest again. ”Yes! I’m here! I think I’ve found Sombra’s spell books or something!” She heard the clopping of hooves coming from the staircase. Twilight returned to the book in front of her. She stroked it absently with a hoof, as if she could brush away the layers of secrets and reveal the information they so desperately needed.
”Whatever spell they used on the foals must have come from here…” Twilight mumbled. ”Why else would this door even be open and this page bookmarked?”
”Twilight?” Shining Armor warily stepped through the doorway. He looked around quickly. ”How did you find this room? When we searched Sombra’s study last time the doorway was not there.”
”I was afraid you would say that,” Twilight said. ”It was open when I got here. Somepony must have come and unlocked the door. I think he or she was after this book… it was bookmarked when I came.”
”What does it say?” Shining Armor made his way over to Twilight and stared down another page full of balderdash. ”Uh… what does it actually say?”
”No clue,” Twilight said. ”I guess it must be encrypted or something.”
”Encrypted… of course!” Shining Armor exclaimed. ”Give me a moment, I think I have the key!” The white stallion rushed out of the room and up the stairs as fast as his hooves could carry him. He was hardly gone for more than a minute before he returned. His confidence however, was gone, replaced by a harrowed look.
”Twilight, this is not some renegade mage. This is… this must have been planned, possibly since before Sombra was banished. We have underestimated the threat… badly I fear.”
”What happened?” Twilight asked.
For the first time Twilight could remember, Shining Armor performed Cadence’s breathing exercise. ”The entries at the top of the pages. They remind me of a book we found on the desk when we searched the room upstairs. I did not read a lot, but I think it was some sort of journal. Sombra’s own. Cadence read parts of it, but she told me it’s mostly filled with strange, semi-philosophical questions and answers about life and death. Anyway, I thought that journal might somehow be the key to this cypher.”
”And what’s the catch?” Twilight asked.
”The journal was moved. I knew exactly where I placed it, and now it was not there but nearby. Do you see? Somepony figured out where the journal was, broke through my protection spells and came here. Somepony knew about this room and how to access it, and they knew how to read this book too. Whoever this was must have been given directives from Sombra himself once; nopony else would even be allowed inside his study.”
”Do you think Sombra trusted anypony with this kind of… knowledge?” Twilight asked dubiously. ”He… was a tyrant, right? Who would even want to learn his sort of magic. Besides, he is gone now, so why would anypony do… all this?”
Shining Armor looked around. ”The thrones…” he said slowly. ”thirteen thrones and thirteen books. Six one each side and the largest one in the middle. Sombra would not have made this room like that without a reason. There… might have been another twelve ponies… and if one of them was banished with the empire, he or she could still be alive today.”
”I suppose… but is there any proof that Sombra actually had followers like that? We need to be sure. We can’t afford to start looking for the wrong type of pony right now. Is there any reference to this kind of thing anywhere?”
”There is an easy way to check,” Shining Armor said and levitated up a rather inconspicuous book. ”Perhaps Sombra referenced them in his journal?” He went up beside Twilight, set the journal down on the creepy book stand and opened it in the middle.
Two blank pages stared back. Shining Armor frowned and flipped backwards in the book with his magic until he came to a page filled with a host of disturbingly exact letters. Twilight looked down, captivated for a moment with the penmanship. Not even the letters she received from Celestia looked like this; perfect lines and every letter impeccably written. Twilight somehow knew that if extracted two e:s from different parts of the page and compared them she would not find any difference.
”Entry number 154…” Shining Armor mumbled. He flipped forward, then stopped. ”This journal ends at entry 168… but there is plenty of pages left for writing after that.”
Twilight flipped backwards in the horrifying spell book. ”And this book starts at entry 169… which is also thirteen times thirteen, by the way… same number as the thrones.”
”Never mind that,” Shining Armor said, annoyed. ”This makes no sense; somepony moved the journal and unlocked this room! The journal and the spell book must be connected, so why don’t the entries match? It will take us way too long to comb through all Sombra’s 168 entries to find a reference that may not even be there!” Shining Armor stomped in anger. ”Curse you Sombra!”
” BBBFF…” Twilight said soothingly. ”I’m sure I could figure this out, I just need a little time-”
”We don’t have time,” Shining Armor bit her off. ”Every day Cadence’s time grows closer, we have to solve this soon!”
The stallion breathed heavily for a few moments. Then he seemed to shrink down. He hung his head and sighed. ”Sorry, little sis. I’m just so worried about all this… I thought we had him with the journal, so to find another dead end here… sorry.”
”I understand, brother,” Twilight said, patting him lightly on the shoulder. She felt she managed a mirthful tone. ”And this isn’t a dead end; we just need somepony else who knows more about Sombra and his potential allies. Maybe the ponies who lived here during his reign can tell us more about whatever allies he might have, and his spell books. I even know the right pony to help us with this!” Twilight’s face lit up.
”To the library!” she called triumphantly. ”Time to battle wits with Sombra on my home ground! Let’s see how he likes that!”
Despite everything, Shining Armor cracked a small smile.
*****
Entry nr. 497
They are done. My twelve loyalists have finally taken the ultimate step and swore themselves to me, now and forever. All have hearkened the Command of the King, as they should.
A simple bargain; eternal knowledge, eternal kinship… all for just eternal loyalty. As they understand, deals with me does not end in death; quite the contrary actually.
But I digress. My twelve have been disoriented since the ritual at the panorama of my empire was complete, but that is to be expected. I am confident they will soon be back to their work, more efficient than ever. I eagerly await the next few days…